Author's Notes: Sorry for the delays in getting this chapter out, folks; things... got kind of complicated on my end. I'm glad folks are enjoying this fanfic, as odd a concept as it may be. Also, I want to thank folks for not being offended by Ukyo's line vis-a-vis the appeal her old D&D club found in the cover art for Queen of the Spiders.

Death of Snipers: Eh, when it comes to magic, 4e vs. 3e and PF is six of one, half a dozen of the other. They have very different paradigms, most notably in 4e's stark split between battle magic and ritual magic, which is where a lot of the "utility" spells like Knock, Floating Disk, Magic Mouth, Endure Elements and Plane Shift ended up. Ironically, the split means that, in 4e canon, ritual magic can actually do some really crazy shit, because it's not expected to be balanced against your "normal" spells - high level official rituals include "create castle from nothing", "teleport a castle around the world", "create floating island", and "open a permanent doorway through time itself". As for Nabiki learning magic... well, I don't want to spoil things, but I hope you'll like what's coming on that front.

xbox432: I'm glad you liked Weltha and Baeloth so much; I've grown rather fond of them myself.

Van the Rogue Soul Drinker: It's absolutely fine to suggest stuff based on ! I may be using the World Axis (which is actually from 4th edition), but I fully intend to exploit its flexibility by absorbing crazy stuff from across D&D's history and settings. After all, if you can't have N'djatwa (elf/ogre crossbreeds from Mystara), Saurials (dinosaur people from... well, their own world, but they first appeared as part of the Forgotten Realms), Thri-Kreen (originally from the Realms, but nowadays associated with Dark Sun), Warforged (from Eberron), Rougarou (wolf-people who can turn into wolves) and N'kosi (lion versions of Rougarou) sharing the streets of Sigil... well, what's the bloody point of it? Besides, mechanics wise, I'm kind of using the 5e material as a hypothetical framework - I'm not literally statting the characters out or anything, but my editor dislikes 4e mechanics, so I'm using 5e as a "parser" of sorts for him.

Appreciate all the effort folks put into making suggestions!

Chapter 3: Market Day Madness!

The teens from Nerima thought that they knew what to expect from the Market Ward of Sigil.

"Potions! Philters! Potations! Elixirs! Tinctures! Tonics!"

After all, they'd seen their fair share of street markets and supermarkets and, for at least two of their number, village markets and farmer's markets; how different could a market be, even in a topsy-turvy city like Sigil?

"Cheese! Try my cheese! Made from the finest milks across the multiverse! Cow milk! Sheep milK! Goat milk! Horse milk! Gorgon milk! Catoblepas milk! Pegasus milk! Such fine cheese!"

They thought it would be a simple in-and-out affair, a minor distraction for the day.

"For sale! Rodents, insects, vermin for sale! Makes a great offering - or a delicious meal!"

...Suffice it to say that they couldn't have been more wrong. The Market Ward was total anarchy; permanent shops rose from amidst a chaotic tangle of temporary stalls and seller's carts like islands in a sea of whirling color. Individual merchants carrying their goods in trays slung around their neck or draped over their forms twisted their way through the crowd, competing with their established neighbors for clientele.

Umbrellas, awnings, tents and canopies stretched across the skyline, keeping out the worst of Sigil's weather, but plunging the streets into darkness, which the merchants countered to the best of their abilities with a hundred different forms of illumination; braziers burning with flames in all the colors of the rainbow, glowing mushrooms, luminescent crystals, dancing balls of light... The air was thick with smoke and chatter, shoppers practically rubbing shoulders as they bustled through the streets.

"Okay... this is more than I was expecting," Ranma admitted, eyes bouncing like expresso fueled ping-pong balls trying to keep track of everything..

"It's almost as busy as Ginza," Nabiki noted, feeling a pang of homesickness at the thought, the sounds of civil and less than civil haggling music to her ears.

"Too-too crowded! ...Where we even start looking?" Shampoo wondered, her eyes bouncing as much as Ranma's but to the weapons and groupings of people armed, not enjoying just how hard it was to keep a plan of defense mentally prepared..

Ranma quickly pulled out the precious map that their hosts had given them and studied it intently. "...Doesn't look like there's any specific shops marked on this," he confessed. "I guess we'll have to just wing it and see where we end up..."

"Well, look on the bright side; it's a day to explore the local market district. What could possibly go wrong there?" Ukyo spoke up, smiling as she did her best to put a positive spin on things. She did her best to ignore Nabiki's flat stare, the Tendo girl's cynicism evidently out in force today.

Clustering together, more out of a desire on Shampoo and Ukyo's part to stay close to their fiancé than any concern for their safety, the quartet picked a direction and set off.

Traveling through the Market was at once eerily familiar and overwhelmingly strange. Familiar, in that the sense of pushing through store-lined streets and almost fighting against the crush of bodies was all too like being back in the shopping markets and street malls of Tokyo. Strange in that as they explored, they were confronted by an endless cavalcade of bizarre beings and creatures that made it quite clear just how far from home they really were. Even the humans often looked more like something from a manga or an anime, with strange colors and weird clothing styles that couldn't be more removed from the Japanese streets they'd left so far behind.

The endless cavalcade of partial conversations washing over them like an audible tidal wave didn't exactly help.

"You know the old saying when it comes to fighting the undead, right? You can cut the flesh, but you must crush the bone?" asked a seemingly human man with skin the color of dark chocolate and a waist-length mane of metallic silver hair. "Well, this beauty can do both!" he continued, brandishing a length of wood tipped with a monstrous mass of metal; an oval sphere of flanged iron with one facet growing out into an axe-like blade.

"But that requires you to be strong enough to actually wield such a monstrous weapon," his companion, a male elf with milk-pale skin and blood red eyes shot back, holding up a helix-shaped length of sharpened steel that glowed with a faint purple flame.. "A light blade, fueled with baleful energies by your own sorcery, is far more effective."

"Magic really is everywhere here, ain't it?" Ranma muttered, even as he led the girls away from the debating warriors.

"Seems like it... you really think you can get a cure here, Ranma-honey?" Ukyo asked, vague memories of curse removal being doable in the DnD books but never being easy.

"Well, it no can hurt to try!" Shampoo declared passionately, eager to dump her own curse of the feline by the roadside.

"Remember what Weltha said," Nabiki interjected in a chiding tone. "Spellslinging is a business here like any others, so before we get off on any half-cocked mission to get your curses cured, we need to find a way to start bringing in some money."

"Yeah, yeah, Nabiki, I..." Ranma suddenly stopped in mid-sentence, having turned partially to face his unwanted Tendo fiancée, before he lunged forward with a shout of, "Oh no you don't!"

Nabiki screamed in fright as Ranma suddenly charged at her. "What are you doing?!" she cried out in fear, Ranma's hand shooting past her so quickly she felt the wind of it ruffle her school dress as... he grabbed somebody that had been beside her!? She hadn't even noticed they were there!

"Gerrof! Lemme go, ya tallfolk berk!" squawked the victim of Ranma's sudden lunge, kicking and flailing in a desperate attempt to escape. For all the good it did, they might as well have been trying to move a mountain; Ranma's fingers were locked around their wrist like an iron manacle.

"Did you really think you could steal from us and get away with it?" Ranma simply spat back, hoisting the would-be thief aloft... which was quite easy, since they were no taller than a ten-year old; a small and grubby figure clad in the tattered remnants of a once-fine formal suit and tophat. It would have been quite easy to mistake them for a human child, pale-skinned, freckle-cheeked, ginger-haired and green eyed... were it not for the rather unchildish lumps stretching the fabric of her shirt.

Of course, Nabiki had other things on her mind than taking in the appearance of yet another Sigil oddity. She was instead frantically rifling through her pockets, and turning up nothing. "You little thief!" she squalled in outrage. "How dare you steal my money!"

"Shoulda watched it better, tallfolk," the diminutive woman jeered at the fuming Tendo daughter from underneath the battered rim of her crooked tophat. "Finders keepers, losers weepers..."

"Which I guess makes you the loser... here, Nabiki," Ranma interjected, tossing the precious bag of gold pieces to her, which she snatched from the air with surprising adroitness.

"Hey, how'd you get that back?!" the little thief protested.

"Same way that I got this," Ranma replied, smirking as he hefted aloft another, larger bag that looked to have originally been some kind of internal organ before it had been split open, tanned, and sewn back up. Its contents jingled and jangled musically as he jiggled it teasingly before the would-be pickpocket's face.

Her eyes went wide, and she frantically patted herself down as best she could with one hand. When she evidently failed to find what she was looking for, she directed a blazing, hateful glare at Ranma.

"Yondalla's fat milky tits!" she spat. "Give those back!"

"Finders keepers, losers, weepers," Ranma taunted her back. "But... I'll give you a choice. Either you can fork this over as payment for trying to rob us..."

"...Or?" the resigned pickpocket grumbled.

"Or, you can become our guide for the day, and we'll not only give you your purse back, we'll give you a gold piece for your troubles," Ranma explained.

"What?!" an indignant Nabiki squawked.

"Oh, come on, Nabiki! I don't mind killing time just exploring, but we do need to actually make those purchases. A local guide's better than just stumbling around blindly all day and then having to find our way back to the Ryltar's'."

"Airen have point," Shampoo agreed.

"Makes sense to me," Ukyo added.

Nabiki grimaced as her two "fellow fiancées" sided with Ranma. 'Of course you'd say that - you just want to suck up to Ranma! ...But, damn it all, he does have a point... when did Ranma grow a brain?' she wondered to herself. Finally, she grit out between clenched teeth, "Fine... I guess that makes sense."

"Well, put it like that, I'd have to be a bleeding idiot not to pick option two," the pint-sized pickpocket chimed in. "Now, gimme," she demanded, holding out one hand and clenching it several times.

Ranma simply snorted dismissively in response. "We may be new here, but we're not stupid," he scoffed. "No, you get your money at the end of the day."

And with that he made the bag disappear with a flick of his wrist before unceremoniously dropping their new guide flat on her amply padded rump.

The dirty-faced little thief scowled, rubbing at her sore rear. "What's to stop me from just giving you all the laugh?" she asked bitterly.

"If you try to run, Shampoo will catch you... and she's not as nice as I am," Ranma casually warned her.

Shampoo simply grinned savagely, and began to crack her knuckles, an act that drew an askew glance from Nabiki and Ukyo, who'd never seen her do that before. "Guide no need arms to be guide, right, Airen?" she asked sweetly, giggling as if the concept of dismemberment was some hilarious personal joke.

"Okay, okay, I get it! Call off your pet psycho!" their new guide complained. Standing up, she made a show of brushing herself down and tugging her oft-patched clothes into a better fit. "So, where are we going?" she asked.

"First, you can tell us who and what you are; we need something to call you," Ukyo interjected.

The little woman rolled her eyes beneath the sagging brim of her battered tophat. "I be Molly Milkcurdle, and I be a halfling. You obviously be tallfolk and clueless," she jeered.

"Clueful enough to rip smart tongue from halfling mouth if Molly misuse it," Shampoo chirpily retorted, smiling as if nothing would please her more than to do so.

A sour look flashed across Molly's cherubic face, but she evidently feared to test Shampoo's embraced status as the group's resident monster. "An' what kind of clothes are you after? You can find everything from pawner's racks to noble-cladders here in the Market Ward."

"We want something simple, but nice-looking. Decent quality, but not overpriced junk. Can you do that for us?" Nabiki explained.

The halfling closed her eyes, button nose screwed up as she visibly thought it over. Finally, she nodded to herself and opened her eyes again. "Aye, I can do that for you. Follow me, bigjobs..."

She turned and started walking away with the assurance of a native, and the Nerimian quartet promptly fell in behind her. Ironically, now that they had a guide, in many ways, it was even harder to find their way than before. Not only did they have to keep reminding themselves to look down in order to keep track of her - no small task, given the almost literal undercurrent of similarly sized passers-by that this made them aware of - but every turn of their head turned up some new fantastical scene that enticed them to stop and gawk.

They passed a humanoid mass of shimmering violet crystals in the vague shape of a humanoid woman, playing the faceted protrusions from its body like a cross between a giant wind chime and a one-man band. Then they wove their way around two creatures like mountain goats with the upper torsos of hairy, horned men replacing their necks, which were currently pressed up against each other with their horns locked together as they shouted in each other's faces, gesticulating wildly. They dodged a humanoid squirrel the size of a ten year old, clad in the multicolored motley and jingling bells of a court jester, as it somersaulted through the crowded streets. Enough weirdness to fill a year in Nerima passed in a few minutes, and they knew they were only scratching the surface.

Despite all the temptations, the foursome continued their advance, following the halfling as she led them through the circuitous streets until finally she stopped and turned back to face them. "This be it," she declared, gesturing to the door of a small, two-storey building of wood and brick. A wooden sign hung from a bracket above, depicting a spool of thread overlaid by crossed needles. "Loodra does good work for cheap; she'll sort you out, no problems," Molly assured them.

"Huh... well, we'll be the judge of that. Come on, ladies... and Ranma," Nabiki said, pushing through the door into the shop. Shampoo and Ukyo filed after her, eager to finally have a new change of clothes after having spent the better part of two days in the same outfit, with Ranma bringing up the rear.

"Hey! What about my money?!" Molly protested.

"We didn't just fall off the turnip truck. If this place sorts us out, then you'll get your money," Ranma replied, before he turned his back to the fuming halfling pickpocket and stepped through into the shop himself.

A tinkling bell announced his presence, and despite himself, Ranma smiled; it was an oddly familiar little touch, and one that reminded him of being back on Earth.

...A pity that the same couldn't be said for the proprietor...

"Well, hello, darlings! Welcome to Loodra's clothing emporium! And how may I help you this day?!" she lowed in delight, flouncing flamboyantly over to the startled quartet, eyes shut and lips curled into an enormous smile that matched the sheer joy in her voice of having somebody to serve.

Since coming to Sigil, Ranma and his three fiancées had seen more than a few "beastpeople" roaming the streets. Not the kemonomimi of manga or anime back in Japan, either, but strange hybrid creatures whose forms more fully blended the elements of man and animal, with heads that bore strangely expressive snouts and bodies covered in fur, feathers, chitinous plates or scales.

Loodra was a bovine beastwoman - emphasis on 'woman'. A long cow's tail flicked cheerfully behind her, emerging from a carefully tailored slit in the rear of her flowing, elegant dress, which hovered just far enough above the floor to provide the occasional glimpse of her hooves as they clopped against the stony floor. Her body was covered in fur; the black-and-white splotched pattern reminding Ranma of milk cows he'd seen in Hokkaido. Surprisingly large horns for a cow emerged from the side of her head, above distinctively bovine ears, with shockingly human eyes of a rich ocean blue peeking from beneath a carefully coiffed mane of golden blonde. All of this made her gender quite apparent, but there was, as it were, two very obvious hints that even a blind man couldn't fail to notice. Especially since Loodra was tall enough that they were just about level with the average person's face.

Nabiki blinked, a tingle running up her spine as she felt somebody touch her. She twisted to look over her shoulder, only to see Ranma was literally trying to hide behind her, pointedly refusing to look at the store-owner, cheeks visibly crimson. 'So, not so invulnerable to women's charms after all, eh, Saotome? ...Not that I supposed I can blame you. Goddamn, she is stacked...'

Firmly pushing that traitorous thought aside, and realizing that her female compatriots were in no better shape to speak up - Ukyo was apparently overwhelmed by insecurity, whilst Shampoo had seemingly had a private breakdown at no longer being the biggest girl around - Nabiki cleared her throat and replied to the cow-woman's question. "Hello... we're in the market for some new clothes; we were told you could help us?"

"Oh, but of course, darlings! Loodra's Looms produce only the finest of garbs, everyday and exotic, and all at the most reasonable prices," Loodra assured them, smiling toothily as she clasped her hands in glee. "Come! Tell Loodra what it is that you are desiring?" she asked, tilting her head and giving Nabiki a sincerely intrigued stare.

"We're mostly after a few good suits for everyday wear - we just came to Sigil with nothing but the coin in our pockets and the clothes on our backs," Nabiki explained, hoping to play on the merchant's sympathies.

Her gamble seemed to pay off, because shock and understanding visibly washed over the cow-woman's weirdly expressive face. "Oh, you poor dears! Yes, yes, you have come to the right shop alright! Come, I keep the women's clothing upstairs - your handsome young friend, he will be okay down here looking on his own?" she suggested, giving Ranma a saucy wink as she did.

Nabiki was actually a little impressed that Ranma didn't try to disappear from view by crouching down behind her, but she was still close enough to feel the nervous shiver that went through him at having a woman - even if she did literally look like a cow - saying such flirtatious things to him in front of his notoriously, and violently, jealous fiancées. "I'm sure he'll be just fine, won't you, Ranma?" she asked; the question rhetorical but intended to pull him back to reality.

"Wha? Oh, yeah! Yeah, I'll be fine. Not my first time clothes shopping," Ranma blurted out.

"Excellent! Very well, my lovelies; follow me," Loodra beamed, clapping her hands authoritatively before spinning around and walking over to a staircase against a far wall.

"You heard her, ladies; let's go," Nabiki said, taking the first steps to follow her. She stopped halfway, and then glanced back at them. "You coming?" she asked firmly.

"So jiggly..." Ukyo murmured, before she blinked rapidly and then shook her head. "What? Oh, yes, coming!" she insisted, half-jogging to catch up with Nabiki.

"Shampoo coming too!" the Chinese Amazon insisted, powering after the three of them and up the stairs.

In all honesty, Nabiki wasn't quite sure what she had expected of a Sigil clothing shop, but the sheer resemblance to any clothing shop back in Nerima - completed pieces hanging from racks taking up most of the floor, a few changing rooms at the back - was a comforting bit of familiarity. Even the clothes weren't too strange at first glance, but then, she supposed that there was really only so many ways to make a dress. Even the materials were for the most part ordinary.

Oh, there was some weirdness here and there - a dress made from bluish-black scales that glittered with star-like points of light here, a cloak of iridescent feathers there, a gown designed for a centaur over in the corner - but, for the most part, it was a surprising and welcome breath of normality in a city that managed to beat Nerima in the crazy department.

"Here you are, ladies; if you need anything, I'll be right here to assist," Loodra assured them, dramatically sweeping her arm to indicate the many racks of clothing.

"Thank you, Miss Loodra," Shampoo chirped, already approaching the nearest rack with an intrigued look in her eye.

"Yes, thank you, miss. We really appreciate it," Nabiki added, with Ukyo nodding her agreement before the two Japanese teens joined their Chinese counterpart in one of the favorite pastimes of any modern teenage girl: clothes shopping!

Shuffling through the hanging racks, Ukyo immediately went for anything that was meant to be worn with trousers. It wasn't so much that she hated dresses as... well, she didn't want to be wearing dresses in the streets of Sigil, not given the muck she had been stepping in yesterday. To her delight, apparently, Sigil had heard of things like women's pants, and she quickly pulled out a matching top and bottom pair. "Ooh, I love this one!" she chirped happily, holding it against herself to see how it might fit. "Hmm... but I'm not so sure about this color... you have this in red?" she asked Loodra.

The bestial shopkeep smiled happily and snapped her fingers. The lime-green of Ukyo's chosen clothes shifted to a beautiful scarlet red before her eyes, and Ukyo's jaw dropped in shock. "You're a wizard?!" she blurted.

At that, Loodra laughed a deep belly laugh. "Gracious, no, darling - nothing so extravagant as that! I merely know a few helpful tricks, that's all," she assured Ukyo, grinning all the while.

"Do those tricks let you adjust the size on this one?" Nabiki interjected, hopefulness tinging her words despite her efforts to play it cool as she presented a dress to the cow-woman.

"Don't you think dresses are a bad idea? I mean, the streets here aren't exactly the driest... or the cleanest," Ukyo interjected.

"Well, we're not going to be outdoors all the time; surely there's going to be a time and a place where we can wear dresses," Nabiki calmly fired back, before turning her attention to Loodra once more. "So, can you make this a little bigger, please?"

Loodra smiled and lazily twirled a now-glowing index finger in a few gentle arcs, leaving a sparkler-like trail through the air as she did. The dress in Nabiki's hands pulsed, and her eyes sparkled with glee as it gained about two sizes. "Thank you, Miss Loodra!" she chirped, holding her prize up to the light to examine it better.

'Now that's service! ...Why couldn't magic ever do anything this useful back home?' she wondered.

Ukyo watched Nabiki's little moment of triumph, and felt jealous. 'Everybody else gets to wear dresses, but not me... wait a sec, we're not in Nerima anymore. Those idiots from back home aren't here. The Ryltars gave us plenty of money for clothes shopping - I can buy myself a dress if I want one!'

She turned and began combing through the dresses, unaware that Nabiki, having waited for her to turn away, was currently doing the same with the pants and tops.

The two Japanese girls moved swiftly through the store's racks, accumulating several outfits apiece, before the same thought struck them both.

"Where's Shampoo?" they simultaneously asked each other.

Laughter suddenly filled the air, emanating from a corner of the store they couldn't see. "Nabiki! Ukyo! C-come look see!" Shampoo shouted to them through her giggles.

Nabiki and Ukyo shared a mutual glance of concern, then headed towards the hysterical Amazon. "You okay, Shampoo? What's wrong?" Ukyo asked, having taken the lead instinctively in case of the remote possibility that this was some Chinese Amazon trick... then again, she had to admit, she couldn't think of any devious plans that started with Shampoo laughing her head off.

The grinning, giggling Joketsuzoku greeting her just made Ukyo feel more like a paranoid fool. "Look at this one!" she tittered. "Is too-too funny!"

"What's got you so... oh, my..." Nabiki trailed off as she took in what Shampoo was holding.

"An... armor... bikini?" Ukyo murmured, mostly to herself as she stared at it.

In fairness, it was a pretty accurate summation of what Shampoo was holding. In general shape, it resembled one of the more scandalous bikinis; two upwards-facing pyramids meant to be worn over the breasts, and a pair of downwards-facing pyramids meant to cover the crotch and buttock cleft. But each pyramid was made of coin-like steel disks, all wired together.

"That's our Red Sonja Special, the latest from Frazetta Fashions," Loodra commented, her sudden interjection startling the three girls, who hadn't heard her coming up behind them.

"Who buy something like this? Is too-too bad armor!" Shampoo pointed out.

"True, it's not gloryborn armor," the bovine proprietor admitted, nodding her head. "But that doesn't mean they can't be useful. You'd be surprised how many boys - and girls - like to see Frazetta's work in the bedroom. I guarantee it can help make a fun night," she added, smiling fondly at some distant memory.

Those words had Shampoo giving the scale-mail bikini another look. "Hmm... you think airen like see Shampool in this?" she mused aloud.

"Pft. Probably scare him all the way back to the Ryltars','' Ukyo scoffed, folding her arms over her chest.

"Show what Ukyo know; Ranma see Shampoo in far less, and no run then!" Shampoo spat. "Beside, not Shampoo fault Ukyo no could hope to fill this out..."

"You take that back!" an indignant Ukyo roared, whipping her battle spatula from its customary place on her back and holding its edge up towards Shampoo. The Chinese Amazon responded by whipping out one of her chui with her free hand, holding it in the same threatening posture and aimed right at Ukyo.

"Whoa, whoa, time out, ladies! This isn't Nerima!" Nabiki hastily interjected, trying to stop the disaster before it passed. "You're both pretty! You just aren't as shamelessly bold as Shampoo is, that's all, Ukyo."

"Ya got that right," Ukyo sniffed, without breaking the eye-lock she had with Shampoo. But, to Nabiki's relief, the two of them both relaxed and stowed their weapons away.

"Shampoo sorry... Nabiki is right; Ukyo is pretty girl, too. Really, is only Nabiki who no could fit into Red Sonja," the Joketsuzoku declared.

"Excuse me?" an affronted Nabiki icily asked.

"Heh, no kidding," Ukyo giggled. "Sorry, Nabiki, but the idea of you wearing that getup? It's ridiculous!"

It said something about just how much recent events had pulled Nabiki out of her comfort zone that she actually rose to the provocation. "I'll have you know that I could not only pull that getup off, I'd look fabulous in it!"

Now it was Shampoo's turn to scoff. "Shampoo pay to see that."

"Oh, yeah?" Nabiki leered, greed now mingling with wounded pride and igniting into an all-consuming fire. "You want to make it a bet?"

Ordinarily, those words from her lips would have set alarm bells ringing in the minds of Ukyo and Shampoo alike. But she couldn't have picked a better time to prey upon their respective senses of pride, and the two nodded as one...

Meanwhile, downstairs, Ranma sighed and tapped his foot against the floor. "Why do girls always seem to take so long to pick out clothes?" he lamented to nobody in particular, double-checking his own pile of gear.

Whilst one could accuse Ranma of being able to get his new clothes sorted so quickly because he had no fashion sense, that would be inaccurate, as anyone who had seen Ranma's personal wardrobe of female clothing could tell you. In fact, Ranma actually had quite a natural knack for fashion... he just didn't care what was fashionable. Even his female outfits were selected so carefully only because they had a purpose: weapons in his assaults on the minds of male victims. So long as it did the job it was supposed to do, Ranma deemed clothes satisfying, as a general rule of thumb.

...Which didn't make waiting around for the rest of his... well, he guessed he'd call them '"friends", for lack of any better terminology, to join him and pay. He sighed again, staring at the ceiling and contemplating the mysteries of the teen female shopper. He was distracted from this reverie as Shampoo's voice suddenly came from behind him.

"Airen? Shampoo find too-too cute outfit; what you think?"

Ranma bit back a grumble of irritation. He could never really stay mad at anyone, least of all a girl, but Shampoo's obvious efforts to try and get back into his good books after causing this whole mess were really not helping her cause. He turned to face her all the same, prepared to offer a carefully neutral comment that, hopefully, wouldn't be taken as encouraging her pursuit of him... only for the words to tumble away like leaves in a rushing stream as the wide-eyed youth beheld Shampoo's "cute outfit".

The Chinese Amazon giggled at Ranma's shocked expression. "Airen like what he see?" she cooed, striking a pose that showed off the best possible view of her ample assets.

Ranma didn't reply. He couldn't, what with the way his tongue had seemingly glued itself to his mouth. In retrospect, he would argue that the sight of her shouldn't have been so shocking. After all, Shampoo had returned into his life after he first thought her gone by ambushing him in the bathroom, resulting in Ranma having a very up and close and personal encounter with a naked Joketsuzoku girl. Then they'd wound up naked together in Kuno's bathtub during that whole mess with the Japanese Nanniichuan. As for Shampoo dressing up, why, there had been that time on the beach with the love pills, and the mess with Ryoga stealing Shampoo's waterproof soap. So, really, he was quite used to Shampoo's lack of shame compared to, well, Akane Tendo.

...And yet, somehow, that still failed to adequately prepare Ranma for the sight of Shampoo in a glorified bikini made of metallic scales. Perhaps it was the way that the triangular arrangement of disks feigned modesty whilst completely failing to provide it, leaving Shampoo's full breasts and round, perky buttocks on proud display. Maybe it was that tiny bit of modesty that, perversely, made the difference; the obscurement of Shampoo's nipples and most secret place when so much more of her pale, moon-kissed skin was on display merely enflamed the imagination with picturing what lay beneath.

Whatever the reason, Ranma found himself staring like a deer caught in the headlights... before he remembered that Shampoo wasn't the only one of his fiancées who had made the trip to this strange city, and well-honed instincts kicked in. He flung his hands up in a desperate warding gesture, averted his eyes, and started backing away from Shampoo as quickly as he possibly could without openly running from her.

"Shampoo! I-I didn't, you can't, where did you? How? I can't!"

"...Ranchan?"

Ranma visibly shivered as the soft, questioning voice of Ukyo pierced his panicked babbling. Anger and resentment, he was used to, but he couldn't remember the last time he'd heard Ukyo sound like that when another fiancée was doing something so brazen around him. "Ucchan, I swear, it's not-!" he protested, spinning around to face her... only for shock to steal the words away before he even finished the sentence.

Ukyo blushed, the crimson visible all the way down her neck as she put her hands behind her back and gave Ranma an embarrassed yet hopeful look. "So, Ranchan? D-do I look good?" she asked quietly, a pleading expression on her face as she waited for Ranma's reply.

Ranma just stared back at her, dumbstruck by what he was seeing. It had been hard enough to process at first the one time he'd seen Ukyo dressed up in women's clothing, and this was a pretty far remove from a simple dress! The top may not have strained to contain the full bounty of her bosom as it had done with her rival, nor did the bottom frame as wide a pair of hips, but there was only one conclusion that could be drawn from the overall picture.

"...Definitely not a boy..." Ranma breathed. Then he cursed as Ukyo's face lit up with a peculiar mixture of embarrassment and joy, and he ran for it, self-preservation drowning out all concerns about his reputation.

"Nabiki! Nabiki! Where are you?!" Ranma pleaded, racing up and down through the racks of clothing in desperate search for his new Tendo fiancée.

"I'm over here, Ranma," she called back, and Ranma immediately darted in her direction like a drowning man seizing onto a thrown rope.

"Oh, man, this is a disaster! Shampoo and Ucchan both found this weird outfit and now they're dressed like pin-up girls and they're going to tear this place apart and-and-and..."

Nabiki giggled, a sound that Ranma had never heard before and which chilled him to his very soul. "Go on, Ranma; you were saying?" she asked, the sweetly innocent tone of her question belying the wicked grin on her face as she nonchalantly stretched. This act did some very interesting things to parts of her that Ranma normally quite comfortably pretended didn't exist, a luxury that her new golden version of the same outfit as Shampoo and Ukyo didn't afford him.

It wasn't as if he'd ever thought that Nabiki was unattractive. Abstractly, he'd always known that Akane's sisters were lookers, even if he'd never have dared admit it - that was a luxury that a guy with three jealous fiancées (and one psycho would-be girlfriend) didn't have. Still, he'd have had to have been blind to not notice Nabiki's features, or the way her clothes tended to hug her figure, or even her love of short shorts that showed off her long, slender legs. But the "clothing" (if one was generous) she was wearing? Well, that was almost literally thrusting Nabiki's womanhood in Ranma's face!

'...Wow, she's got a bigger rack than I thought...' a tiny voice mused in the corner of Ranma's mind, much to Ranma's horror as he realized what he'd just thought.

Still smiling that horrible, beautiful, cat-like grin, Nabiki sashayed towards Ranma. "So, Ranma? Do you think I'm cute?" she asked sweetly.

That was the last straw and Ranma's mind finally gave up and threw in the towel. Faced with such a shattering of his reality paradigm, Ranma did the only sensible thing he could do, and fainted; he was unconscious before he hit the floor.

"R-Ranma?!" Nabiki yelped as her unwanted fiancé keeled over backwards. 'Oh, crap; if he's dead, those girls will kill me!'

"Nabiki? What going - what happened to Airen?!" Shampoo shrieked, pelting down the makeshift corridor to attend to her stricken suitor.

"What happened, Nabiki?!" Ukyo demanded, turning flashing eyes on the Tendo girl responsible for all this.

"I don't know! He just fell over! Is he dead?" Nabiki replied, directing this last question at Shampoo.

The Chinese Amazon deftly laid a finger against the side of Ranma's neck, feeling for a pulse, and then visibly slumped in relief. "Airen okay! He just fainted... how that happen?"

"Guess he got a little worked up by what he saw?" Ukyo suggested, a small and slightly hysterical giggle escaping her at the prospect.

"...You mean airen get so turned on, he faint to deal with it?" A bemused Shampoo asked, looking quizzically at Ukyo. When her crossdressing rival nodded, Shampoo smirked smugly. "Have to work on that, then. No fun if husband faint when it time for nookie."

"I hate to burst your bubbles," Nabiki interjected. 'Actually, I don't; last thing we need is for you two to get distracted by fixating on fighting over Ranma again.' "But he probably fainted more from fear than arousal."

"Fear?" an incredulous Ukyo repeated. "Why in the world would Ranchan be scared of us?"

Shampoo nodded her agreement with the sentiment, looking rather put out by the suggestion.

"Gee, I don't know... it isn't as if the two of you don't have a habit of getting violent with him when there are other women around, and especially not when those other women are flirting," Nabiki dryly retorted.

The two girls looked confused for a moment, then visibly thought it over before blushing in mutual embarrassment.

"I... never thought about it like that," Ukyo confessed.

"Great... Shampoo lose again..." the Joketsuzoku muttered bitterly. "Shampoo so sick of always being two steps behind..."

Nabiki watched the glum expressions on their faces for a few moments. 'Should I do this...? Yes, I think this is a gamble that could pay off...'

"It's not entirely hopeless," she quietly commented. "Ranma's not exactly the grudge-holding type... well, at least when it comes to pretty girls. If the two of you can knock it off with trying to punch each other senseless when you think he's looking at somebody other than you? He might just start to realize your good sides."

"...You really think so?" Shampoo asked tentatively, visibly brightening as hope dawned on her features.

Ukyo likewise directed a hurt-yet-hopeful look at Nabiki, waiting for her answer.

"It certainly can't hurt to try," Nabiki replied, carefully hedging her language. "But it would probably help to change back; I think we'll call this bet a draw, and it certainly won't do us much good if Ranma faints every time he looks at us."

"Yeah, you're right, Nabiki..." Ukyo admitted. Then she blushed and smiled. "Did you see the look on his face when he saw us, though? I've never gotten a reaction out of Ranchan like that before!"

"Shampoo know; like deer caught in headlights!" the Joketsuzoku giggled. "Honestly, that too-too big relief; Shampoo always worry Ranma's curse mean he not able to react to women. Is sooo good to see Shampoo wrong!"

With that, the two rivals swept off back to the upstairs changing rooms where their clothes lay waiting. Nabiki lingered to make sure they couldn't see her rolling her eyes at their antics. 'Seriously; those two act almost like sisters sometimes. Ranma's sure got his hands full with that pair. Still, if they take my words to heart, there's less chance they might see me as a rival and take my head off.'

She glanced over at Ranma, still lying prone on the floor. 'Funny how you didn't faint until you saw me, Saotome. If I didn't know better, I'd actually think you might have liked what you saw... nah, couldn't be. You're in love with my sister, though kami know that she seems intent on squandering those feelings. If only the two of you could have just spit it out already! If you aren't tempted to stray for the likes of Ukyo and Shampoo, there's no way you'd be interested in me...'

Despite her logical denials, Nabiki couldn't fight back the treacherous hint of pride at the idea that maybe Ranma had seen her as attractive, if only for a moment. After all, even if she wasn't interested in him herself, she had to admit, he was easy on the eyes... and kind of sweet when he wanted to be...

She mentally slapped herself, shaking her head. 'Where the hell did that thought come from?! Get it together, girl; you're going to get back to Nerima, and Akane's going to be so worried about Ranma that she might finally take the stick out and admit it, and then you're going to give him back and everything's going to get back to normal!'

Confidence reaffirmed, she followed her fellow females back up to the second floor. As she made her way up the stairs, Loodra emerged from behind the racks of clothes and bent over Ranma. "Are you awake, dear?"

"Are they gone?" Ranma quietly asked in response.

The cow-woman chuckled warmly. "Yes, dear; they've all gone back upstairs to change back. You can get up now."

Ranma's eyes sprang open and he lifted his legs straight into the air, rolling back onto his outflung arms before using them like springs to propel himself into the air and onto his feet. "Thank goodness... that was a close one."

"I sense there's a story behind that reaction... not many boys would faint at having three lovely ladies flaunting the Red Sonja Special," Loodra noted.

"It's complicated," Ranma replied. 'Gotta admit... I didn't expect them to sound so sad about the idea that they scare me - I mean, not that they do scare me! But...they genuinely seemed upset about it. Dammit, why do girls have to be so complicated?'

Fortunately for Ranma's sanity, the girls swiftly reappeared, now clad once more in their original clothing and carrying bundles that, at a glance, did not include the scalemail bikinis that had left Ranma comatose. It took Ranma but a moment to gather his own bundle, and that of course meant it was time to pay the piper. Well, the tailor.

"Thirteen gold pieces?" Nabiki protested.

"You won't find better prices than that here in Sigil," Loodra relied calmly, still smiling sweetly.

"Just pay up, Nabiki; we got a pretty good deal here, and honestly, I kind of expected it to be more than that," Ranma interjected.

Nabiki's face twisted as if she'd just bitten into a lemon, but then she sighed and nodded. She took out the precious bag and painstakingly counted out nearly three quarters of the money their hosts had given them, dropping the coins into Loodra's palm with a musical tinkling. She nearly dropped the bag in surprise when Ranma suddenly gently lobbed the other bag he had taken from their reluctant guide in her direction, before she instinctively snatched it from the air. "What the?" she asked, directing a quizzical stare at the only male member of their group.

"Go and give that back to Molly, and pay her that gold piece we promised her. Ucchan, Shampoo and I will just put these away, and then we'll catch up to you," he told her.

Nabiki rolled her eyes at the thought of giving away yet more precious money, especially to somebody who had tried to steal from her when they first met... but, she couldn't deny that the little thief had come through on her part, and so she headed to the door. To her surprise, however, the halfling was nowhere to be seen, even given the ever-moving tide of bodies in the street.

"Molly? Molly, where are you?" Nabiki called out, stepping out of the door to get a better view.

"Over here, tallfolk," came an answering cry, with the shifting crowd revealing the halfling pickpocket to be standing in an alley just across the street. She beckoned to Nabiki, and without a thought, the middle Tendo daughter crossed the street.

"You kept your word in bringing us here, so Ranma sent me to pay you like we promised," Nabiki explained, dropping the bag of copper and silver pieces into the halfling's outstretched hands.

"How generous..." Molly drawled. "But we've decided to renegotiate! Now!"

A quartet of figures lurched from the darkness of the alley, none taller than Molly herself. Still, that was little comfort to the decidedly non-combatant Nabiki, who immediately lurched backwards, two words she never would have countenanced saying spilling from her lips without thought.

"Ranma! Help!"

"Ala-peanut-butter-sandwiches!" came an answering shout, as one green figure jabbed a black and white stick at her.

"Wait, what?!" Nabiki blurted, the sheer absurdity of what she had just heard stunning her into immobility. That was before a scintillating beam of green light leapt from her assailant's outstretched...whatever it was, and struck Nabiki squarely in the face. In that instant, fatigue washed over her, reminding Nabiki of those hated days when school forced her to run laps with the other girls, only turned up to eleven.

Her whole body felt lifeless, like a dishrag wrung clean, her aching muscles refusing to obey her frantic commands to carry her now heavy-as-lead body to safety. Instead, she pitched forward and collapsed face-first onto the pavement, her jawline protesting the abuse, but unable to fight her way upright again.

Molly threw back her head and laughed. "Another tallfolk cut down to size!"

"Hey! Whaddya think yer doing?!"

Ranma sprinted through the crowded streets, unceremoniously weaving around or shoving aside anyone stupid enough to get in his way, and launched himself at a flying kick at the treacherous halfling street thief. Unfortunately, whether because he'd been delayed just enough or because Molly was quicker than he'd anticipated, she managed to dive under his attack, causing him to sail harmlessly overhead before skidding to a stop against the gritty street.

"Hahah! Tallfolk fools! Taste the wrath of the Underdogs! Get him!" Molly cried, shooting up from her faceplant into the dust and gesturing grandly at Ranma.

It was at that point that Ranma became aware that he was surrounded by half a dozen motley figures, including Molly herself, none of them taller than the halfling. A green-skinned, feral-looking male in a matching if tattered tailed suit and pants, a blue-skinned female with glowing orange eyes in a ragged hood clutching a set of pipes, a near-naked green female with mismatched eyes and sporting a pair of iron knuckles, the world's tiniest gray male bodybuilder, and a...bedraggled half raccoon, half-monkey thing with a thick leather collar around her neck who really looked like she'd rather be anywhere else.

He only had the briefest of moments to take that in, before the blue woman lifted the crudely fashioned pipes to her lips and began to play them. Ranma tensed, but felt no impulse to began dancing, so obviously it wasn't a repeat of Ling-ling and Lung-lung's stupid Dance of Great Fire Dragon technique. Thus emboldened, he smirked at the piper. "That's a cute tune and all, but you're hardly playing me into submission here."

And that was when he suddenly found himself covered in rats.

"Aaagh! Gettem offa me! Gettem offa me! Ouch! No bitey! Stop! Help!" Ranma cried out, twisting and flailing as he bounced around like a tennis ball in a desperate attempt to free himself from his unwanted rodent overcoat. Which responded by sinking their teeth into his skin to hang on for dear life.

'My hero...' Nabiki sarcastically applauded. She would have said it aloud if only she could get her tongue to work...

"Hang on, Ranchan!" Ukyo shouted as she raced into the alley, brandishing her spatula and making Molly leap out of its reach.

"We come for you, airen! Take that, nasty blue thing!" Shampoo cried out as she landed in front of the piper and delivered a punishing kick to the little blue woman's chest, sending her flying down the length of the alley until she smacked into the wall at the far end... and then punched straight through it. Shampoo had the graciousness to blush at that. "Oops. Sorry... stupid cheap walls..."

"You can't do that to Brianna! Big bully!" shrieked the mad-eyed, green-skinned female. Then she roared, her whole body quaking as she swelled up, muscles bloating into being like a scene from that new shonen anime Shampoo liked to watch when she had the TV to herself, growing and growing until she towered over the Jokestuzoku. She cracked her knuckles and grinned a broken-tusked grin. "Any last words before I beat your ass?"

"...Auntie Lotion? What you doing here?" Shampoo asked, staring up wide-eyed at her new challenger.

The whole alley froze at that non sequitur, with even Ranma stopping mid-rat-hurling to stare at Shampoo.

"I ain't your auntie!" the hulking she-thing snarled.

"Oh, good. Then Shampoo no feel guilty about this!" the Joketsuzoku cried, before she hit the newly gigantified goblin woman in the jaw with an uppercut that lifted her oversized assailant clean off of her feet and laid her out unconscious before she hit the floor.

Ukyo, meanwhile, was battering away at the gray-skinned muscle-bound goblinoid, which merely returned a series of dull metallic clanging for her efforts. The creature grinned, showing off disproportionately large fangs. "Silly wench, you can't hurt me! My skin is hard as stone!"

Ukyo simply looked at the little braggart, and then lunged forward in a powerful kick. Everybody else winced collectively as she drove her foot into the fork of her assailant's trousers with an audible crunch. The little gray man's eyes went wide in horror, and he squeaked miserably before slowly falling over backwards, clutching himself.

"Serves you right for trying to kidnap a lady," Ukyo sniffed disdainfully.

"And that just leaves three," Ranma concluded, glaring at Molly and cracking his knuckles, his two fiancées closing ranks with him as they advanced on the three remaining members of the gang.

The little green man blanched as white as mushy pea soup, and hastily began waving his stick in the air, tracing a complicated pattern. "Abraca-pocus!" he shouted, and then the world lit up in a searing, eye-burning brilliance that had all three Neriman teens covering their eyes and cursing in pain. When they could finally blink the tears from their watering eyes and see again, only Molly and the raccoon-monkey remained, the little green man having almost reached the opposite end of the alley.

"Mumfred, you miserable coward!" the halfling thief shrieked in fury.

"Better a live coward than a dead hero!" was the answer he shot back before he rounded a corner and disappeared.

Molly ground her teeth and snarled like an animal. "You are dead, Mumfred! You hear me?! When I find you, you're gonna be ratshit!" she screamed.

"And you! Miserable tallfolk bastards! Don't think you've won yet!"

Feral, inhuman sounds clawed their way out of the halfling's throat as she trembled like somebody having a fit. Thick bristly black fur began to sprout across her body as her face tore open, jaws distending with massive, chisel-like fangs and bones visibly growing into the shape of a rodent-like muzzle. Her fingernails stretched and cracked into long, black, splintery talons, and a giant rat's tail slipped through a previously hidden hole in the back of her pants, whipping through the air with an audible crack. Blood-red eyes gleamed at the three teens as the newly transmogrified rat-woman squealed in what was evidently supposed to be the murine equivalent of a ferocious roar. All in all, she was quite an intimidating figure... so long as you ignored the fact that she was still barely four feet tall.

"...Huh. That's new. Do all halflings do that, Ucchan?" Ranma casually asked his old friend turned would-be wife.

"Heeheheheheee! Cower, tallfolk, for I'll soon be sucking the marrow from your gnawed bones!" squeaked the half-rat halfling.

"I hate werebeasts!" Ukyo suddenly screamed, lunging forward and crushing the startled Molly under the flat of her mighty spatula with a resounding CLANG, much to the shock of her companions.

"Uhh... tallfolk fool! I can't be stopped by that!" Molly boasted, pushing herself upright again.

There was another mighty CLANG as Ukyo squashed her flat yet again.

"Stop that!" Molly squeaked angrily.

CLANG

"I'm warning you!"

CLANG

"Stoppit!"

CLANG CLANG

"I surrender..."

CLANG CLANG CLANG

"...Mommy?"

CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG...

Once the frenzied hammering was over and Ukyo was panting with exhaustion, Ranma cautiously stepped forward, one eye on his fiancée, the other on the sizable crater in which a remarkably intact, but unconscious (or at least smart enough to fake being so) halfling-rat now lay. "I think you got her, Ucchan..."

Ukyo wiped her brow with one forearm and blew out a disgusted puff of air. "Hardly. Werebeasts are all but impossible to kill without silver. But she'll think twice before fighting us again. C'mon, let's grab Nabiki and go."

"Shampoo get her!" the Joketsuzoku promptly volunteered, stepping over and shaking Nabiki's shoulder. "Nabiki get up now; fighting all done, is no time for cowering no more."

Slowly, Nabiki rolled her head around to face Shampoo and gave the Chinese Amazon the flattest, most cutting look in her arsenal. "M' not cowering, m' paralayzed," she mumbled as clearly as she could when her tongue felt like the inside of a well-used boot.

"Huh. Shampoo did think it odd that Nabiki just lie on ground like lump. No matter, Shampoo fix!" And with that Shampoo scooped up the still-limp form of Ranma's current Tendo fiancée in a bridal-style carry before anyone could stop her.

Ranma cast a wary look at the two of them, but Shampoo simply smiled brightly back. "Okay... so, we beat the bad guys-"

"Wait, where's that monkey-thing?" Ukyo interjected, remembering that there had been a sixth gang member.

"It up there. Not look like it want to fight," Shampoo replied, pointing at a nearby chimney. Sure enough, the raccoon-monkey was curled defensively around the smoke outlet, watching them all with sad eyes.

"Counts as a win in my book. Anyway, we won, we got out shopping... so, what, we just go back to the Ryltars' place now?" Ranma asked.

"Well, we can't just drag Nabiki all over town in her condition," Ukyo observed.

"Paralysis not permanent. Maybe just find place to rest? Get some food?" Shampoo suggested.

"Huh... well, a place like this should have taverns, and I'm pretty hungry. I don't think there's any harm in going to one first and seeing if Nabiki gets better," Ranma concluded.

"Makes sense to me," Ukyo agreed.

Stopping only to rob the two bandits whose unconscious bodies were right there in the alley with them, the quartet headed back out into the streets of the Market District. Finding the nearest tavern wasn't hard; it was just a simple matter of asking. After about ten minutes of pushing their way through the crowds, they found themselves standing before a two-storey building with a sign hanging over the front door; a grinning skull made of clockwork and metal. What might have once been a window had been filled in with some wooden boards, on which had been painted a few words in garishly red paint.

"No fiends, Blood War veterans drink half price... this must be the Chattering Mimir, then," Ranma noted.

"Then let's go already; I'm starving," Nabiki insisted from her perch in Shampoo's arms. As they had walked, she had found the worst of the numbing, muscle-cramping tiredness ebbing from her body, but it had left her with a ravenous appetite, as if she hadn't eaten since last night.

The other three from Nerima rolled their eyes, but Ranma pushed the door open, and led them all through.

The interior of the Chattering Mimir was dark and smokey, with light coming from candles hanging high above and scattered across the ceiling like stars, and a roaring fire on which haunches and joints of various beasts roasted on great spit, filling the air with a sizzling salty grilled meat scent that made four sets of teenage stomachs grumble in anticipation. The clientele was a motley mixture of races, united by three things; scars, armor (often spiked), and haunted looks. The place was surprisingly quiet, without the lively chattering and antics that any of the Nerimans would have anticipated for such a place; the customers seemed far more interested in nursing their drinks and staring into the hazy shadows than interacting with each other.

Undaunted by this coolly indifferent reception, the quartet sauntered up to the central bar. There, they found the oddest-looking creature they'd seen in Sigil so far; a great metal box, carried on two spindly clockwork legs and with four clockwork arms protruding from its cubical frame. One vertical face was taken up with an abstractly human-like flesh, seemingly little more than a segmented mask of verdigrised bronze over more underlying clockwork. Its thin, lipless mouth twisted into an artificial smile, heavy eyelids clicking as they slid over faceted glass eyes in a facade of blinking as they approached.

"Salutations! Being welcomed to this place, the Chattering Mimir! How may Nordom be assisting you in this time and place?" it asked, its voice possessing a metallic warbling quality that only strengthened the obvious fact of its mechanical nature.

"...What are you?" Ranma blurted out, his surprise at this mechanical monster - a robot? - in a city so defined by sorcery and spellcasting overwhelming his manners.

"Nordom is being Nordom. Nordom equals backwards modron equals Nordom," it chirped, completely unphased.

"Modron? I've never heard of them," Ukyo added.

"Explanation: Modrons are being planar entities, constructs from the fortress slash world slash entity that is Mechanus, which is located within the Accordant Expanse. Modrons are being manifestations of order in a chaotic multiverse. Modrons are being one," Nordom replied. "This unit was once one. But is now being a smaller, louder one. Nordom equals backwards Modron. Backwards modron equals synonym equals rogue modron. Has clarification been achieved?"

"Y-yes, that explains everything," Ranma quickly replied. Actually, it still sounded as clear as mud to him, but obviously this... 'Nordom' would chatter on for ages if given the right provocation.

"Return to original query: do you desire nourishment and slash or intoxication?" Nordom asked, still smiling that rather creepy artificial smile.

Before Ranma could reply, the door behind them suddenly slammed open. Two monstrous beasts - eyeless lizard-hound things with lamprey-like mouths and whp-like tongues - pattered through, panting harshly and lashing the air with their tongues. Just behind them came what was obviously their master; a towering brute that looked like a humanoid dog covered in chitinous armor, with massive pincered arms and a smaller pair of human-like arms protruding from its stomach. Its horns nearly scraped the ceiling as its blazing golden eyes scanned the room, its nostrils flaring.

"Valenae Mistcourt! Deserter! I've come for you!" it snarled, brandishing one crab-like pincer with menace.

A woman leapt up from her table, visibly trembling in fear. She was an elf-maid, with ash-gray skin and silver hair, her once-lovely features mangled by three wicked scars that nearly split her face in half. Pearly, opalescent eyes of solid sea-green bulged in sheer terror as she stared at the monstrous newcomer.

"N-no! No! NO! I won't go back! I won't!" she screamed. She shivered violently, as if freezing to death, and her whole body became misty and translucent... before she suddenly snapped back to her former solidness with an electric crackle, looking even more panic-stricken than before.

"Help-help me! Please help me!" she pleaded, looking desperately around the tavern.

None of the other customers met her eye. Instead, they deliberately turned their backs on her, hunching over their drinks and visibly trying to avoid getting involved.

All of them... except for one...

"Hey! Leave the lady alone, ya jerk!" Ranma spat, having leapt from the bar to position himself in front of the towering monster.

"You have to be the hero now?!" Nabiki protested, but found herself ignored and left to her own seat as Shampoo and Ukyo immediately flanked their fiancé.

"Look, I don't know what you want with her," Ranma began, but found himself cut off in mid-sentence as the dog-thing snarled and then suddenly lunged forward, one massive pincer scything towards Ranma's neck with such speed even Ranma found himself hard-pressed to dodge. He ducked beneath the arm, then hopped to the side as the second claw came down in a vertical strike that would have bisected him. "Oh, so we're just skipping right to this part, eh? Fine by me!"

The monstrous hound things snarled, a sound like steel scraping on steel, and would have pounced on Ranma, had they not instead been pounced on by Ranma's warrior-fiancées.

"Oh no you don't!" Shampoo cried, smashing one away with a dual-chui strike.

"Fair's fair, pooch!" Ukyo agreed, clobbering hers over the head with her spatula.

As helpful as that unexpected intervention was in keeping the fight one on one, Ranma was realizing something...

'I might have bitten off more than I can chew...' that traitorous little voice inside his head mused, even as Ranma dodged, ducked and wove around incoming strikes from his monstrous opponent. 'Seriously, how does something so big move so fast? This is like fighting two Ryogas!'

Spotting an opening, Ranma lunged forward and planted a full-force punch squarely into his opponent's midriff, the blow powerful enough that the displaced air rushed through the tavern in a breeze that ruffled Shampoo and Ukyo's hair.

'Gotcha!' Ranma smirked in triumph, craning his neck to look the beast in the eye... only to realize that it was still standing. Blood seeped between its open fangs, a single bead of gore falling with comical precision right onto Ranma's forehead, but otherwise it seemed completely unphased. If anything, it just seemed pissed off.

Unfortunately for Ranma, that distracted him just long enough that he couldn't react in time when the creature grabbed him by the neck in one massive crab's claw, lifting him from the floor and level with the ceiling with all the effort of somebody picking up a pillow. It sneered at him and lazily drew back its other claw in what would obviously be a disemboweling strike.

'...I'm in trouble...'

And that was when the world exploded. A staccato cracking noise split the air, like a rolling thunderbolt that crashed and boomed repeatedly, two dozen roars in total. That would have been shocking enough, but the sight of pieces of Ranma's assailant's head flying away in sprays of gore were the true captivator. In less time than it took Ranma to process it, the monster's head was shattered into pulp by what even Ranma could barely make out as flying bullets. When the noise stopped, there was only a gushing, ragged stump where the creature's head had been. Its claw opened up, dropping Ranma to the floor as it fell backwards, dissolving even as it fell into sickly green embers and onyx-black soot.

The hound-things whined and whimpered, before turning and fleeing out the door, leaving the three martial artists from Nerima free to look at their unlikely savior.

Nordom brandished four of the biggest, most baroque-looking revolvers that they had ever seen in its four hands, flicking out the cylinders and letting the bullet casings rattle to the floor in a single motion, before snapping them closed with another wrist-flick and then smoothly tucking them away into slots around its... well, midriff, for lack of a better word. Its lipless mouth was set in a flat horizontal line and its glass eyes were half-hooded, in an approximation of disdain. "The instructions are written clearly. No fiends."

"Demons never were the best at reading, gearbox," came a second voice. It said something about just how much Sigil was getting to them that none of the Nerimans even battered an eye when a disembodied skull floated through the air to hover in front of Ranma. A pair of glass eyes, glowing as if they held candle flames within them, added a much-needed semblance of humanity to the naked bone as it studied Ranma flatly. "That was brave, basher. Stupid, but brave." Weirdly, its voice was surprisingly human - far better than the metallic, almost robotic tones of Nordom.

"Yeah, well, I never have been too good when it comes to bullies," Ranma conceded, watching the skull and preparing himself for the inevitable attack - or at least a tongue lashing. He barely reacted to Shampoo and Ukyo falling in line with him.

"Never could stand the type myself. I'm Morte; I own this dump. And you are?"

"Ranma. Ranma Saotome... and I'm sorry about the mess," he added as an afterthought.

The skull chuckled, a surprisingly warm and hearty sound. "Ah, this? We've had worse than that on poetry recital nights. Never again will I hire bleakniks, I don't care how cheap they are! So, what brings you here to the Chattering Mimir? You just looking to pick a fight with a fiend?"

"Hardly," Ranma reassured him, slowly relaxing at the apparent lack of an incoming scolding. "We just wanted to dust ourselves off, maybe grab a bite to eat and something to drink. Then we gotta get back to job huntin'."

"Well, if it's bub you're craving, we can fix you up, no troubles! As for eats... well, all we got is what's on the spit," Morte professed cheerfully.

"...You mean the meat that's caught fire?" Ukyo cautiously interjected.

Ranma blinked, and Morte's eyelights flickered in what was apparently his equivalent of a blink, before they both turned to the spit. As it turned, the smell of burning meat was not coming from the ashen heap of ex-demon, but from the joints on the spit, which had evidently caught fire whilst unattended.

Morte's jaw dropped and his eyes popped out of their sockets, with Ranma instinctively catching them before they could hit the floor. "Aagh! Nordom! You addlepated gearbrained box! I told you to watch that meat!"

"Error! Nordom has been observing the steadily combusting portions of flesh as instructed this whole time!"

"Then why are they on fire?!" Morte bellowed, with impressive volume for somebody without lungs.

"That is what happens when meat is allowed to sit at sufficiently high temperatures for sufficient periods of time," Nordom replied emotionlessly.

Morte began to curse, spewing profanities with a vernacular that left even Ranma, long an informal student of the art of swearing, impressed. For all the emotional impact it had on Nordom, he might as well have pouring water on a duck's back.

"Shampoo fix!" Shampoo blurted out, already sprinting for the spits.

Morte stopped in mid-profanity, spinning to face her. "Just what good are you gonna do?!" he complained, only to stop and stare in open-mouthed shock as Shampoo grabbed the spits and pulled them from their slots over the fireplace, hefting what had to be at least her own body weight in spitted meat into the air with what seemed like no effort at all.

"W-where Shampoo put these? They hot!" the Chinese Amazon asked, trying not to let molten fat and boiling blood drip over herself.

Morte snapped his jaw back into place with an audible click and shook himself. "On the bench will do!"

With no further encouragement needed, Shampoo sprinted across the floor and all but slammed the spits onto the bar, releasing the handles and stepping away as she shook her hands, visibly wincing.

"H-hey, Shampoo? Are you okay?" Ranma asked, finally finding his voice after managing to put together what must have happened.

Shampoo turned and gave Ranma rather feeble smile. "Shampoo okay. Great-grandmother train Shampoo to handle heat! Just... bit more heat than Shampoo expecting."

"...Wouldn't those metal spits be red hot after so long next to an open fire?" Nabiki asked, pointedly staring at Shampoo's hands.

Shampoo flushed and tucked them away from sight. "Shampoo tell you, Shampoo fine!"

"Oh no, you're not just playing the tough guy this time," Ranma said, and Shampoo jumped in shock; she hadn't even noticed Ranma and Ukyo approaching her! Before she could do anything else, Ranma had grabbed her wrist and gently but firmly pulled it into view. "Wow, that's red... you sure you're alright, Shampoo?"

Shampoo swallowed and tried not to get gooey at hearing Ranma talking to her with actual concern for once. "Shampoo okay, airen, really... push heat tolerance to limit, but Shampoo be fine. Not even blistering, see?"

"Alright... but why would you do something like that anyway?" Ranma demanded, letting Shampoo's hand go as he did.

"...Shampoo just want to show Ranma that Shampoo can be helpful, too. Shampoo more than just stupid brute who get us stranded here," the Chinese Amazon meekly admitted, eyes downcast and staring at her scalded red palms rather than look directly at Ranma, although she stole a glance at his face to see his reaction.

Whatever Ranma might have been expecting to hear, that obviously wasn't it. His shock and obvious guilt was like balm to Shampoo's soul after having come so close to potentially driving him away once and for all with this whole Sigil mess. Unfortunately, she didn't have long to savor it, as the sound of throat-clearing drew their attention back to Morte.

"Sorry for interrupting, but... you got something that belongs to me, kid," the talking skull quipped.

"Oh, yeah, sorry man," Ranma replied, hastily holding out the glass eyes to the skull.

"Y'mind sticking them back in there? I'd do it meself, only I'm a little short-handed at the moment," Morte cackled at his own lame joke.

Gingerly, Ranma reinserted the glass orbs into the hollows of Morte's eye sockets, absently noting that the glow in them came from tiny sparks of light that flickered in the sockets themselves.

"Ah, that's better! So, anyway, I guess we can't offer you anything to eat today..."

"Eh, I don't know, sugar...I might be able to salvage this..." Ukyo interjected, idly poking at the still-sizzling joints with one of her smaller spatulas.

"Eh? You can cook?" Morte asked, turning a quizzical gaze to the crossdresser.

"Ucchan and Shampoo are both excellent cooks!" Ranma replied, unable to resist boasting on their behalf. He didn't notice the two of them smiling at his words.

"Interesting... you can fight, and they can cook... tell me; what does she do?" Morte asked, bobbing in the air to "nod" towards Nabiki.

"Um...aside from looking pretty and being too smart for her own good? I'm not actually sure..." Ranma confessed, scratching his head.

"Gee, thanks for the compliment," Nabiki dryly quipped. She also firmly kicked the part of herself that felt a pang of surprise and happiness at hearing Ranma admit that she was pretty. 'Wasn't that scene in the clothes shop enough?' she mentally scolded herself.

"Never forget that looking pretty can be a valuable skill in its own right," Morte playfully chided Ranma. "You said you were looking for work earlier?"

"Yes?"

"Well, how about you work for me? This place is new; we could use a bouncer, cooks and waitresses. What do you say?" Morte asked, grinning a sharp-toothed grin. Literally, now that Ranma was in the mindset to notice such things.

"Depends, how much would you be willing to pay?" Nabiki asked, putting on her most predatory smile.

"A gold piece per day," Morte replied immediately.

"Each!" Nabiki interjected, holding up a finger for emphasis.

"Done!" Morte shot back, and cackled at Nabiki's visible surprise at how readily he'd agreed to paying what was effectively ten times the daily wage in Sigil for four people. "You cullies ready to trust me word, or do we need to put it in writing?"

As the haggling continued, and Shampoo & Ukyo began to dissect the scorched meat to salvage what they could, a feeling of hope washed over the four teens from Nerima. This was their first real step towards getting back on their feet; with a steady income, they could start looking towards finding their own place to live, and from there, working on a way to get back home.

It wasn't the most glamourous of beginnings... but at least it was a beginning.

Chapter End & Closing Notes

Finally! Man, you guys have been waiting for this for so long, and I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am for the delay; between real life issues and a killer case of writer's block, this was just such a hassle to get off the ground. Hopefully, things will be smoother in the future. And yes, the next Heated Storm chapter should be out soon, too.

As an aside... does anyone know how to use the author's gizmets on FFN to check how many reviews a story has on a chapter-by-chapter basis? I swear that's an option, but I can't for the life of me find it...